312 

.7 
I852i 




Glass. 
Book 



LETTER 




JARED SPAEK8, ESQ,; 



BEING A KEJOLNDEK 



REPLY TO THE STRICTURES OF LORD MAHON AND OTHERS 
ON THE MODE OF EDITING THE WRITINGS OF 
WASHINGTON." 



BY LORD MAHON. 



&£- 






LONDON: 
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 

1852. 



g I 



London : 

Spottiswoodes and Shaw, 

New-street-Square. 



LETTER 



TO 



J A E E D SPARKS, ESQ. 



Sir, 

I have received (one copy through you? 
own courtesy, if I mistake not,) the three Letters 
which you have published at Boston in reply to 
the comments which, in some recent volumes of 
my History of England I took the liberty of 
making on your edition of Washington's Writings. 
To the arguments and statements of these Letters 
I have given my careful consideration. I have 
also read with attention some other publications, 
which mainly the same controversy has, within 
the last few months, called forth both at Boston 
and New York. 

It would not, I think, have been either my 
desire or my duty to have troubled you with any 
rejoinder on this subject, if there were not one 
point in which I am now aware of having done 
you an injustice, though, as I trust I shall be able 
to show, in no degree from any fault of my own. 
That injustice, however, having been committed, 
I am anxious thus publicly to explain and to 
apologise for it. On other points I must declare 
myself prepared, though with all possible respect 

A 2 



for your observations, to adhere to and maintain 
the opinions I advanced. 

In your Letters you more than once assume that 
I have " adopted and repeated " the strictures on 
your edition which first appeared in the New York 
" Evening Post." That is not the case. I never 
even saw those strictures previous to my own 
publication. But on reading, some years since, 
the letters of Washington comprised in the " Life 
" and Correspondence of General Reed," I was 
struck at rinding in them many important and 
curious passages which I did not remember to 
have noticed in the corresponding letters published 
by yourself. From thence I was led to make a 
careful and minute comparison between the two. 

The result of that comparison I stated, as 
follows, in the Appendix to the sixth volume of 
my " History of England," which was published in 
December last : — 

" I am bound not to conceal the opinion I have 
" formed, that Mr. Sparks has printed no part of 
" the correspondence precisely as Washington 
" wrote it ; but has greatly altered, and, as he 
" thinks, corrected and embellished it. Such a 
" liberty with the writing of such a man, might 
" be justifiable — nay, even in some respects neces- 
" sary, if Washington and his principal contempo- 
" raries had been still alive ; but the date of this 
" publication (the year 1838) leaves, as I conceive, 
" no adequate vindication for tampering with the 
" truth of history. 



" The charge which I make upon the subject 
" is mainly derived from a comparison of Wash* 
" ington's letters to President Reed (which, in 
" Reed's recent biography, are printed precisely 
" from the original MSS.), and the same letters 
" as they appear in Mr. Sparks's collection." — I 
then proceeded to give several of the parallel pas- 
ages in collocation, leaving the reader to judge 
of the variations as he pleased. 

The charge of tampering with the truth of 
history, so far as published documents of an older 
date are concerned, may be resolved into three ; 
namely, of omissions, corrections, and additions. 
All these three charges I intended distinctly to 
bring against you, as the Editor of " Washington's 
" Letters." In support of the last, and certainly, 
as you observe, the heaviest of the three, I relied 
on the two following passages that I adduced from 
General Reed's " Memoirs." 

As General Washington As Mr. Sparks has pub- 

ivrote : — lished : — 

" The drift and design (of " The drift and design (of 

" Great Britain) 'are obvious ; " Great Britain) are obvious ; 

" but, is it possible, that any " but, is it possible, that any 

" sensible — but enough : or " sensible nation upon earth 

" else, on a subject so copious, " can be imposed upon by such 

" I should enter upon my fifth " a cobweb scheme or gauze 

" sheet of paper." (March 7. " covering?" (March7. 1776.) 

1776.) 

" If this has given rise to " If this has given rise to 

" the jealousy, I cannot say " the jealousy, I can only say 
" that I am sorry for it." (Dec. " that I am sorry for it." (Dec. 
15. 1775.) 15. 1775.) 

a 3 



Here, then, were the apparent additions, or sub- 
stitutions, which I found. I found them, as I 
shall presently show, in letters wherein you had, 
beyond dispute, made many other changes. I 
found them edited by a gentleman, Mr. William 
Reed, to whose high character and attainments 
I was not a stranger — the less so, since his bro- 
ther, Mr. Henry Reed, had done me the honour of 
directing and of annotating the American edition 
of my " History of England," so far as the earlier 
volumes are concerned. Now, then, having found 
these passages, I will put it to any candid person, 
and will include you, Sir, in the number, whether 
I was to blame for the conclusion that I drew 
from them ? Had I not a right to say that the 
" cobweb schemes, or gauze coverings," seemed 
to be of your own manufacture ? Had I not a 
right to intimate a suspicion in one or two other 
places of my History (as at vol. vi. p. 161.),' 
whether such improvements had not extended 
farther — whether the same manufactory had not 
been busy elsewhere ? 

The answer to this last query is, as it appears to 
me, supplied by yourself in your recent " Letters." 
" If an Editor," you say, " would allow himself to 
" make an addition to the text in one place, he 
" might do it in another, and in many others." 

I am now assured, however, that the passage 
on " cobweb schemes and gauze coverings," does 
really occur in Washington's original MS. The 
two lines containing it were, it appears, omitted 



by an inadvertency of Mr. William Reed's tran- 
scriber in preparing his volumes for the press. 
All that you have done with the paragraph in 
your edition, was to omit the unimportant closing 
sentence, " But enough, or else, &c." This fact I 
learn not merely from the assertion in your Letters, 
to which, whenever you speak upon your own 
knowledge, I am ready to give implicit credit, but 
also from Mr. William Reed himself, whose per- 
sonal acquaintance I had the honour to make last 
month, in a visit which he paid to England. 

The second variation of " I cannot say that I 
" am sorry for it," or, " I can only say that I am 
" sorry for it," is not at present explained ; but 
the former and more important added sentence, as 
it seemed, being thus accounted for, I am quite 
willing to assume that this also has arisen from 
no intentional design, but only from some inad- 
vertency or oversight either on Mr. Reed's side, 
or upon your own. 

With the positive facts, as they seemed, before 
me in 1851, I do not consider myself justly 
amenable to your rebuke as having made either 
a "rash" or a "loose" allegation against you. 
On the contrary, I must say, that if exactly the 
same facts were before me now, in 185% I 
should still hold exactly the same opinions which 
I expressed in 1851. But after Mr. Reed's state- 
ment and your own, of the inadvertency which 
has crept into his volumes, I am now most willing 
to withdraw my charge against you of having 

A 4 " 



8 

made unauthorised additions. I am sorry that I 
should have made it. I will even go farther, and 
express my regret that, believing as I did that 
charge to be well founded and fully proved, I 
adopted a tone towards you, in one or two other 
passages of my History, different from that which 
I should have used had I thought you wholly 
free from such an imputation. For, having now 
so explicitly recalled that charge, I need surely 
not scruple to say, that as it seems to me the 
making unauthorised additions, without notice, to 
the original papers of a great man is among the 
worst and most wilful errors that an Editor can 
possibly commit — not at all short, in fact, of a 
literary forgery. 

The two other, and, I readily admit, far lesser 
charges which I had alleged, do not seem to me 
shaken by your reasoning upon them. Several 
cases in support of both were given by me from 
General Reed's volumes, and several more, as I 
then stated, there remained to give. I do not un- 
derstand that the accuracy of any of these cases is 
now disputed or denied. Take the first point as 
to correction, or, as I ventured to call it, attempted 
embellishment. You admit, I apprehend, that 
where, for example, Washington in familiar cor- 
respondence mentions " Old Put," you have made 
him say " General Putnam " (April 1. 1776); that 
where he speaks of a small sum as " but a flea-bite 
" at present," you have substituted the words 
" totally inadequate to our demands at this time " 



(November 28. 1775) j that where, in the same 
letter, he complains of an incompetent secretary, 
and adds, " I shall make a lame hand, therefore, 
" to have two of this kidney," you prefer to lean 
on the preceding paragraph that they cannot 
" render that assistance which is expected of 
"them."' In describing this process applied to 
Washington's correspondence, I observed that 
■' Mr. Sparks has greatly altered and, as he thinks, 
" corrected and embellished it." This account of 
your motives I am sorry to find appears to you 
exceedingly unjust. You say, in the course of 
your reply, " his Lordship also undertakes to 
" inform his readers what the Editor thinks ; but 
" I assure him that the Editor never had such a 
"thought, nor ever dreamed of embellishing 
" Washington's language in any manner whatever." 
Of course you must be the best authority as to 
your own intentions. Yet, let me ask you, what 
other motive can by possibility be assigned for 
such corrections besides the one that I have stated ? 
Is it not quite clear in these cases, that you were 
seeking to use language more conformable to 
Washington's dignity of character than Washington 
could use for himself? We in England, with the 
highest respect for the memory of that great man, 
believe that in his own true form he is sufficiently 
exalted. It is only some of his countrymen who 
desire to set him upon stilts ! 

Then, again, to what other motive besides 
" embellishment " are we to ascribe your omission 



10 

of all the vehement language which Washington 
at this period applies in familiar correspondence 
to the English ? You will not allow him, as he 
appears in your pages, to call Lord Dunmore 
" that arch-traitor to the rights of humanity " 
(Dec. 1.5. 1773) ; or the English people " a nation 
" which seems to be lost to every sense of virtue, 
" and to those feelings which distinguish a ci- 
" vilized people from the most barbarous savages" 
(Jan. 31. 1776)' Again, where Washington really 
wrote that in the Carolinas, " Mr. Martin's first 
" attempt [through those universal instruments of 
" tyranny, the Scotch] has met with its deserved 
" success," you leave out the passage within the 
brackets (April 1. 1776). You deemed, no doubt, 
that such phrases were not perfectly consistent with 
Washington's serene and lofty character. Yet I, as 
a Briton, can read them without resentment, and 
should have certainly retained them. Such angry 
feelings are not, I think, surprising in the midst 
of an arduous contest, and, with Washington's 
noble nature, I am sure that they did not survive 
it. There is another passage very far more blame- 
able. On the same 1st of April, 1776, Washing- 
ton writes of v the loyalist Americans left behind at 
Boston : " One or two of them have committed 
" what it would have been happy for mankind if 
" more of them had done long ago — the act of 
"suicide!" For this harshness I can offer no 
excuse. I am not astonished at your desire to 
conceal it. But still I must say, that if you will 



11 



strike out so many of the lineaments, you must 
not expect to have a truthful likeness. If you 
will mould only an imposing statue, you must lose 
sight of the real man of flesh and blood. 

In your reply as lately published, you urge as 
an apology for several of the discrepancies which 
have been noticed in your volumes, that the letter- 
books retained by Washington, and used by your- 
self as your main materials, are found to differ in 
many slight verbal particulars from the originals 
sent out. But this apology, of which I do not 
deny the force in such samples as you have 
afforded, has, at all events, no application to the 
longer phrases in any of Washington's letters. 
Nor can it apply even to a single word in his 
correspondence with Reed, from which alone I 
have been quoting, since I understand it to be 
admitted that no copies of these letters appear in 
any of Washington's books ; and that you derived 
such among them as you have thought fit to pub- 
lish from the originals as received by General 
Reed, and as placed in your hands by his grand- 
son, Mr. William Reed. 

You also allege with considerable force and 
truth that an Editor is both entitled and bound 
to correct errors of haste and heedlessness in the 
manuscript letters before him. So far as this is 
limited to " obvious slips of the pen," and to 
" manifest faults of grammar," or I may add of 
spelling, I have not the least objection to make. 
I would only qualify my admission thus far, that 



12 

if, in any writer of sufficient eminence to render 
the remark worth while, the faults of grammar and 
of spelling should appear common and habitual, it 
may be proper to notice the defect. I have done 
so, for instance, in the case of Prince Charles of 
" the Forty-Five/' I have printed his letters 
quite correctly, for mis-spelled letters are a pain to 
read ; but I have taken care to intimate how far 
the originals were other wise. " With him," I 
said, " humour, for example, becomes umer ; the 
weapon he knew so well how to wield is a sord ; 
and even his own father's name (of James) appears 
under the alias of gems." 

Let me not be understood as supposing for a 
moment, that any thing of this kind can apply to 
Washington. My meaning is only that, when 
you contend for the Editor's privilege to correct 
" obvious slips of the pen," or trifling inaccuracies 
of grammar or of spelling, you contend for what I 
have myself practised, and have never disputed or 
denied. And, let me add in passing, that I think 
you have subjected the controversy between us to 
an unnecessary disadvantage. For it appears, on 
your own showing, that you answered my book 
before you had read it. You judged of it solely 
by some extracts which you saw in the New York 
" Evening Post." Yet, as I venture to conceive, 
your objections would have lost nothing of their 
force and point had they been deferred until you 
had become more fully acquainted with the state- 
ments against which they were directed. Let me 



13 

give one instance, and only one, of the mistakes 
into which you have consequently fallen. You 
say, and with good reason, of yourself as the editor 
of Washington's letters, that in many cases where 
erroneous opinions and false impressions had pre- 
vailed in America concerning the motives and 
plans of the British Ministry or British commanders 
in the war, you had, in your notes, " taken es- 
" pecial care, when practicable, to correct such 
" errors by a free use of the materials procured 
"from the British offices." And then you add, 
in reference to my work, " A British historian 
" might, perhaps, find something to commend in 
" the result of my attempts." Now had you seen 
my work you would have found that I have been 
far from overlooking or withholding an acknow- 
ledgment of the merit which you justly claim. 
Thus at Vol. VI., p. 113., speaking of the de- 
struction of Falmouth U.S. by the English, I had 
written, " See the extracts of our State Paper 
'* Office, as obtained by Mr. Jared Sparks, and 
" produced by him in a valuable note. Mr. Sparks 
"adds, 'No part of this reproach can rightfully 
"'attach to the British Ministry. The act had no 
" ' higher source than the wounded pride of a 
"'subordinate officer.'" And, in the Appendix 
to the same volume, I have mentioned the "further 
" and valuable extracts from these documents (at 
" the State Paper Office), which have been pub- 
" lished by Mr. Jared Sparks in the notes to the 
" collected edition of Washington's Writings. Mr. 



14 

s'Sparks's own share in these notes and illustra- 
*' tions is written not only with much ability, but 
" in a spirit, on most points, of candour and 
il fairness, and the whole collection is of great 
" historical interest and importance." 

Surely I may be allowed, without any departure 
from courtesy, to observe, that when you, in your 
recent Letters, rebuke a brother author for " rash- 
ness/' it might have been still more consistent 
with the absence of that defect in yourself, to have 
postponed your reply to a volume until the volume 
itself should have reached your hands. 

From this digression, I return to our contro- 
versy as to " embellishment." Considering the 
licence which, you have taken on that subject, it 
has been necessary to lay down upon your side a 
far wider theory on the rights and duties of an 
Editor, than is comprised in the correction of 
"obvious slips of the pen." I find it laid down 
in substance, by those who argue for your vin- 
dication, that where letters have been written in 
great haste, or with entire unreserve, an Editor 
is entitled (even at a long subsequent period, and 
where there is no living person affected,) to revise 
them in the writer's place — to bring them as 
nearly as possible to the same state as the writer 
would have brought them, had time for reflection 
been allowed him. Now this seems to me a privi- 
lege most perilous to historic truth ; and, as a 
fellow-labourer in the field of literature, I most 
earnestly protest against it. In the argument re- 



15 

ferring to yourself, it is confined to points of less 
accurate or less dignified style. But why, on the 
same grounds, might it not be extended to points 
of meaning, also ? I will give an instance, to 
render my own meaning more clear. 

There is a letter of Washington's, in which he 
complains that in an affair at Haerlem (Sept. 16. 
1776) two brigades which he mentions had be- 
haved ill— in fact, had run away. Now let us 
suppose that the first intelligence had proved in- 
accurate, and that these troops had really done 
their duty. Why, then, might not a later Editor 
argue on your principle, that Washington, were he 
alive, would have no other wish than to do justice 
to his soldiers — that he would have been eager to 
correct his false impressions — that his Editor is 
bound to bring his despatch to the same state as 
he would have brought it — that the change may 
be easily made (let us suppose) by half a word, — 
and that, therefore, instead of " behaved ill," we 
ought to see in print " behaved well !" In short, 
I would ask you, Sir, upon the principle which 
you seem to think the privilege of an Editor, what 
safe line for historic truth can possibly be drawn ? 

My main complaint against you, and your prin- 
cipal allegations in defence, turn, however, on the 
omissions which you have made as to points in 
which neither Washington's character nor yet his 
style are in any degree involved. Let us then see 
in detail how, as to such omissions, the case really 
stands* The facts, as I und-erstand it, are not here 



16 

disputed. Where Washington speaks of certain 
shippers from New England as " our rascally 
"privateer's-men," you leave out the epithet 
(Nov. 20. 1775)' Where he speaks of certain sol- 
diers from Connecticut as showing " a dirty mer- 
" cenary spirit," you leave out the former epithet 
also (Nov. 28. 1775). Where he complains of the 
inadequate supply of money to his camp from the 
provincial Assemblies, you suppress his concluding 
exclamation : " Strange conduct this ! " (Dec 15. 
1775)* One New England officer is not it seems 
to be mentioned by Washington with a touch of 
irony as "the noble Colonel Enos," and that 
epithet, likewise, is to be expunged (Nov. 20. 
177^)' Of another New England officer, Colonel 
Hancock, you will not allow Washington to ex- 
press his suspicion, with respect to a letter of his 
own, that " Colonel Hancock read what I never 
" wrote " (Dec. 25. 1775). Of a third New 
England officer you will not allow Washington to 
observe, " I have no opinion at all of Wooster's 
enterprising genius " (Jan. 23. 1776)- Of a fourth, 
General Fry, you will not allow us to hear that 
" at present he keeps his room, and talks learnedly 
" of emetics and cathartics. For my own part I 
" see nothing but a declining life that matters 
c< him " (March 7. I776). Nor are we to have 
the amusing description of a fifth New England 
officer, General Ward, who first resigned on ac- 
count of his ill health, and then retracted his 
resignation, " on account, as he says, of its being 



17 



" disagreeable to some of the officers. Who those 
" officers are, I have not heard. They have been 
" able, no doubt, to convince him of his mistake, 
" and that his health will allow him to be alert 
" and active ! " (April 1. 1776). You will not 
suffer Washington to say of Massachusetts, as 
compared with other States, " there is no nation 
" under the sun that I ever came across pays 
" greater adoration to money than they do " (Feb. 
10. 1776). You will not suffer him to say, when 
New England had failed to supply him with the 
gunpowder he needed, " We have every thing 
" but the thing ready for any offensive operation " 
(Feb. 26. 1776). Here you think fit to omit the 
three most important words, "but the thing," by 
which Washington, in a becoming soldier-phrase, 
meant powder, and by this omission you have 
entirely altered the representation of his circum- 
stances which he intended to convey. 

All these cases of omission (and the list is very 
far from being yet exhausted) are derived only 
from that short series of letters which Washington 
addressed to Reed between November, 177«5, and 
April, 1776. Yet even from such samples as I 
have already given, is it possible that any dispas- 
sionate reader can take either of your alterations 
or omissions, the same view as appears to be 
taken by yourself? In the Introduction to your 
edition of Washington's Writings you had given 
the following pledge or promise as to your work : 
l*. Many of the letters, for the reasons already 

B 



18 

" assigned, will necessarily be printed with omis- 
" sions of unimportant passages, relating chiefly 
" to topics or facts evanescent in their nature and 
tl temporary in their design. Special care will be 
" taken, nevertheless, in all such omissions, that 
" the sense shall not be marred, nor the meaning 
" of the writer in any manner perverted or ob- 
ic scured." And in your recent pamphlet you 
think fit to add : " This is all that I have done in 
" the way of altering or correcting Washington's 
" letters. The alterations are strictly verbal or 
" grammatical ; nor am I conscious that in this 
* f process an historical fact, the expression of an 
" opinion, or the meaning of a sentence, has on 
" any occasion been perverted or modified. ,, But, 
on the contrary, can any dispassionate reader be 
in doubt as to the course you have pursued ? Can 
he be in doubt as to the motive which, uncon- 
sciously, perhaps, has been working in your mind ? 
Is it not quite clear that in these omissions you 
have been desirous to strike out, as far as possible, 
every word or phrase that could possibly touch 
the local fame of the gentlemen at Boston, or 
wound in any manner the sensitive feelings of 
New England ? 

Now, Sir, on this point let me be clearly under- 
stood. I am far, very far, from condemning your 
warm attachment to the country of your birth. I 
respect and honour that feeling. But what I 
contend for is, that you had no right to indulge 
that feeling in such a manner. It is not just as 



19 

regards the historical question between England 
and America. Still less is it just as regards the 
historical question between the several American 
States, 

Surely, though you may not see this in your 
own case, a gentleman of much less than your 
sagacity would quickly discern it in another's. — As 
I look up from writing, my eyes fall on a chest 
before me containing two folio volumes in the 
original MS., which have been confided to me ; 
they are the narrative by Lieutenant-General Sir 
Henry Clinton of his North American campaigns. 
Now, supposing for a moment that this MS. con- 
tained (which it does not) strong allegations in 
some places against the American insurgents, and 
in other places strong admissions in their favour. 
What would be thought of me, I ask, were I to 
publish this MS., retaining all the passages of the 
first kind, and omitting all the passages of the 
latter ? Would you not then retort upon me, and 
with the fullest right, the phrase which I had 
ventured to apply to you, and say, that I had been 
" tampering with the truth of History ? " 

In the passage of my History to which you 
have replied, I limited myself, for the sake of 
brevity, to the letters derived from the " Memoirs 
" of Reed;" but I was well aware that these by 
no means completed the proofs that I could bring 
in support of my assertion. I had already had 
occasion to compare (in part at least) other letters 
in your collection with the corresponding ones 

B 2 



20 

which Mr. Peter Force has inserted in some vo- 
lumes subsequent in date to yours, namely in the 
" Fourth Series " of his " American Archives." In 
that work, which is published under the authority 
of Congress, the correspondence is stated to be 
copied, so far as was possible, precisely from the 
original MSS. The letters which I here take for 
the purpose of comparison, extend for the period 
of one year, since Washington assumed the com- 
mand at Cambridge (July 3. 1775) until the De- 
claration of Independence (July 4. 1776), when 
the " Fourth Series" of the Archives ends. These 
letters are in part addressed to the General's brother 
John Augustine Washington, and in part to the 
President of Congress. No letters written by 
Washington can be of higher value and interest 
than these. In the one we have the outpourings of 
fraternal confidence ; in the other, the main com- 
munications from the head of the army to the head 
of the government at that time. Now of these 
letters I have to say that, on comparing Mr. Force's 
work and yours, I found in yours other suppres- 
sions and omissions similar to those of which I 
complained in the case of Reed. And it seems to 
me quite impossible that any candid reader, wich 
the facts before him, can doubt that you were 
guided by the same motive as to both — by a desire 
to deal as tenderly as possible with anything or 
any body that has the honour to be connected 
with New England. 

A few instances will suffice for this conclusion, 



21 

Where Washington mentions to the President " the 
" scandalous conduct of a great number of the 
" Connecticut troops " (December 4. 177<5)> you 
strike out the epithet " scandalous." Nor are we 
to be told of the Boston troops that they were 
once " extremely uneasy, and almost mutinous, for 
" want of pay" (June 8. 1776). Now, here I ask, 
is it, or is it not, important to show how far Wash- 
ington, at that period, could rely upon all his 
soldiers ? 

The whole of the following paragraph is omitted 
by you from Washington's letter to the President 
of August 4. 177^) although you have inserted the 
paragraph which immediately precedes and also 
the paragraph which immediately follows it : — 

" I am sorry to be under a necessity of making 
" such frequent examples among the officers, when 
" a sense of honour and the interest of their country 
" might be expected to make punishment unne- 
" cessary. Since my last, Captain Parker, of 
" Massachusetts, for frauds both in pay and pro- 
" visions, and Captain Gardiner, of Rhode Island, 
" for cowardice in running away from his guard on 
" an alarm, have been broke. As nothing can be 
" more fatal to an army than crimes of this kind, 
" I am determined, by every motive of reward and 
" punishment, to prevent them in future." 

Had you, Sir, here thought fit to leave in blank 
the names of the two Captains, although Mr. Force 
prints them at full length, I should not have seen 
the smallest reason to complain of your reserve. 

B 3 



22 

But, while leaving, if you wished it, these names 
in blank, why omit the rest, or, at the very least, 
the first sentence of this paragraph ? I ask again, 
is it, or is it not, important to show how far 
Washington at that period could rely upon all his 
officers ? 

On the same principle, you omit, from the same 
letter, a curious story told by Washington relative 
to his want of powder. He had found, amidst 
his extreme deficiency, 303 barrels reported as in 
store from Massachusetts, " upon which," he says, 
" I was very particular in my inquiries, and found 
" that the Committee of Supplies not being suffi- 
" ciently acquainted with the nature of a Return, 
" or misapprehending my request, had sent in an 
" account of all the ammunition which had been 
" collected by the province, so that the report in- 
" eluded not only what was on hand, but what had 
" been spent ! " 

Here, I ask once more, is it, or is it not, im- 
portant to show how far Washington, at that 
period, could depend upon the accuracy of his 
colleagues, the members of the Local Congress ? 

But, perhaps, of all the passages w r hich you have 
thought proper to suppress, the following, from 
Washington's confidential letter to the President, 
of July 21. 177«5> is the most important : — 

" Upon my arrival, and since, some complaints 
" have been preferred against officers for cowardice 
" in the late action on Bunker's Hill. Though 
" there were se eral strong circumstances, and 



23 

u a very general opinion against them, none have 
" been condemned except a Captain Callender of the 
" artillery, who was immediately cashiered. I have 
" been sorry to find it an uncontradicted fact that 
" the principal failure of duty that day was in the 
" officers, though many of them distinguished 
" themselves by their gallant behaviour. The 
" soldiers generally showed great spirit and reso- 
" lution." \ 

Surely, I need not waste many words in demon- 
strating the great weight and value which must 
belong to the result of an inquiry made by the 
commander-in-chief — and such a commander-in- 
chief as Washington — into the conduct of his offi- 
cers in a battle, only a few days after the battle 
has been fought. Is not this a passage which 
every future historian of Bunker's Hill has a right 
to be apprized of, and ought to bear in mind ? 

Of several of these omissions, as derived from a 
comparison of your work with Mr. Force's, I have 
already complained, in divers passages of my sixth 
volume (especially at pages 90. and 99.) ; but these 
passages not having been extracted in the New 
York paper, which alone you had seen at the time 
of your published " Letters," are, of course, not 
adverted to in your reply. I should be sorry if it 
were thought that I desired, by the production of 
such omitted phrases, to deny the unquestionable 
merits of the New England States in their Revo- 
lutionary War. But I did consider it requisite to 
prove — and the more so since, as I venture to 

B 4 



24 

think, the fact is too often overlooked on your side 
of the Atlantic— that their cause, like every other 
cause, had its dark as well as its bright side. And 
if you, as the Editor of Washington's Correspond- 
ence, are shown to leave out systematically those 
facts or those opinions by which the dark side is 
to be proved, then I, for my part, must continue to 
maintain that you, Sir, have, according to my for- 
mer words, " tampered with the truth of history." 

Perhaps I may hold too strong opinions on this 
subject. But it is a subject on which I have had 
to think earnestly and often. It is a subject on 
which my thoughts, at all events, ought not to be 
rash or immature. My good fortune has enabled 
me, in the course of my life, to become entrusted 
with several important manuscript collections ; and 
my bounden duty has been to consider how most 
properly to use them. The Stuart Papers — namely, 
the entire correspondence of our exiled princes — 
were placed at my disposal by the favour of His late 
Majesty William IV. Most confidential letters — 
comprising his communications with his Sovereign 
and with his colleagues — were bequeathed to me, 
in conjunction with another gentleman, by the 
confidence of the late Sir Robert Peel. 

If I could hope that the confidence of that great 
statesman — who was nobly ambitious of fame, but 
who desired only Truth for its foundation — if, I say, 
his confidence, and the very many years that have 
now passed since I first applied myself to historical 
researches, could give me any claim to address a 



25 

few words of warning to those far younger men in 
North America who are now commencing such 
researches, and may become hereafter historians 
of their country, — if I could hope that what is 
meant as friendly counsel would not be resented 
as unauthorised intrusion, I would say to them, 
u You are far too great a nation, and have far too 
" high a destiny before you, for all these little 
" devices of suppression and concealment. Be 
" less vain and more proud ! Show yourselves as 
" you really are ! Publish your State Papers as 
" you find them ! Do not in the West treat the 
" characters of your great men as in the East they 
" treat the persons of their Haram slaves ! And 
" be assured that by such a system you will not 
" at the end find yourselves the losers. With you, 
" as with us, there may, no doubt, come to light 
" after the lapse of years, many low motives and 
" many unworthy actions, which, on a different 
" system, might still be hidden from the world. 
" But, on the other hand, you will be able to 
" portray as they really were, and with Truth's 
" own inimitable colours, thoughts of the highest 
" patriotism, and deeds of the highest virtue ! " 

But, Sir, further still, and with respect to your 
particular omissions, I do not think that you can 
be sufficiently aware of the general effect which a 
knowledge of them produces. They tend to cast 
a shade of distrust over your entire work. Let 
me give a single instance of this as derived from 
my own experience. Mr. Adolphus, touching 



26 

upon the non-fulfilment of the Convention of 
Saratoga by the American Congress, and writing, 
be it observed, half a century nearer the time of 
these events, when he might be able to converse 
with some of the principal actors in them, states 
that " Washington remonstrated with force and 
" firmness against this national act of dishonour." 
Now, on referring to your pages, 1 found, as I 
have noticed in my History (at Vol. VI. p. 299.), 
that Washington alludes to the transaction " with 
" the utmost brevity and dryness, and, as it seems 
u to me, distaste." But I found no such remon- 
strance as Mr. Adolphus mentions. Am I, then, 
to be blamed if I feel, or if feeling I express, my 
suspicion that these words of remonstrance also 
may have been among the passages which you 
suppress ? 

On reviewing, then, the whole of our contro- 
versy, and fully acknowledging that I cannot be 
a competent judge in my own case, I yet indulge 
the hope that I have not been guilty of any injus- 
tice towards you beyond that into which I was 
misled by the inadvertency in the volumes of 
Mr. William Reed. There is, however, another 
injustice committed by me in my recent volumes, 
which is not at all connected with you, but which 
I am anxious to take this opportunity to acknow- 
ledge and explain. At page 164. of my sixth 
volume, speaking of the year 1776, I made a 
passing reference to General Greene, as just en- 
trusted by Washington with the command at 



27 

Brooklyn, and as being then "an officer of bravery 
" and enterprise, but of intemperate habits," and 
for this latter statement I alleged in my note my 
authority, namely, the Memoir by the Marquis de 
La Fayette. Of course, even as a mere passing 
reader of the American War, I could be no stranger 
to the eminent services and merits of General 
Greene, merits which (but at a much later period 
than 1776) seem to me, in a military sense, and 
on the American side, inferior to those of Wash- 
ington alone ; and I proposed to myself, when I 
should come to what I deemed a more fitting time, 
to commemorate those merits as I think that they 
deserve. But, meanwhile, it seemed to me not 
uninteresting, nor yet below the dignity of history, 
to notice what appeared to be the early vice of an 
officer afterwards so highly distinguished ; a vice 
recorded, as I thought, on the unimpeachable 
testimony of his personal friend, the Marquis de 
La Fayette. All through my History it has been 
my maxim to aim at strict historical justice, and 
on no account to shrink from unveiling, if fully 
proved, the faults or frailties of eminent men. 

The passage on which I relied in La Fayette is 
to be found at Vol. I. p. 21. of his "Memoirs and 
" Correspondence," ed. 1837- Speaking of the 
American officers at that early period, he says : 

" Lord Stirling, plus brave que judicieux, un 
" autre general souvent ivre, Greene, dont les 
" talens n'etaient encore connus que de ses amis 
" commandaient en qualite de Major Generaux." 



28 

In my own note I cited the volume and page 
where this passage might be found, but I did not 
cite the passage itself at full length, and for the 
following reason; — that at another place in my 
History, concerning the battle of the Brandy wine 
(Vol. VL, p. 242.), I had occasion to quote the 
clause relating to the titular Lord Stirling ; that 
I did not wish to quote the same clause twice 
over ; and that, if the clause were omitted, there 
would be awkwardness and obscurity in com- 
mencing the earlier quotation with the words " un 
" autre general." But I never entertained the 
shadow of a doubt that La Fayette was here speak- 
ing of two and only two persons, that he was de- 
scribing, first, Stirling as brave but unskilful, and, 
secondly, Greene as an officer of intemperate habits, 
whose rising talents were as yet known only to his 
friends. It seemed to me, so far as I may be 
allowed to express any opinion on a foreign lan- 
guage, that had he designed to speak of three 
persons, the particle " et," as connecting the two 
last, would have been more consonant to what 
we are accustomed to observe in the French writ- 
ings. It seemed to me, also, that there was a 
certain congruity or probability in La Fayette 
making this confession respecting the youthful 
fault of his American comrade, since in another 
passage of his Memoirs, we find him not unwilling 
to make a similar confession of himself. That 
later passage of his Memoirs, which will be found 
cited at length at Vol. VI. p. 386. of my History, 



29 

ascribes a violent fever with which he was seized 
at Fishkill, in some degree, at least, to his pre- 
vious want of moderation in wine and rum. 

I now find, however, that I had wholly mistaken 
La Fayette. Some private communications which 
I not long since received from distinguished men 
of letters and personal friends of my own in the 
United States, have convinced me that, in the first 
passage which I cited, La Fayette intended to 
refer not to two officers but to three, suppressing 
from delicacy the name of that General who was 
shortly afterwards, from his continued habit of 
intemperance, dismissed the American service. 
Both the name and the fact are now made known 
to me, and thus is General Greene thoroughly 
exonerated from the charge which I advanced. I 
can scarcely express the concern with which I 
made the discovery that, for the first time, so far 
as I know or hope, in my literary course, I should 
have been the means of bringing forward against a 
highly meritorious man an utterly unfounded ac- 
cusation. If, in doing so, I have (as is but too 
probable) caused any pain to the family or friends 
of General Greene, let them be assured that their 
pain cannot have been greater than my own, and 
let me entreat their candid consideration of the 
circumstances, as I have now detailed them, by 
which my error was unfortunately caused. 

I shall also be sorry if this passage, taken singly 
or on rumour, shall induce any persons in America 
to ascribe to me an acrimonious and censorious 



30 

spirit towards their principal commanders. I do 
not think that it has been so considered in this 
country. Those Americans, however, who may 
choose to look into my volumes will, of course, 
judge of that point for themselves. But there is 
one thing touching it which I may be here allowed 
to mention, because I think that, on the other side 
of the Atlantic, it has not been noticed, or not 
been clearly understood. Whenever I have had to 
make any statement, bearing in any degree against 
any man or body of men in the American States, 
I have, I believe, almost invariably derived, and 
in my notes sought to establish it, either from the 
words of a bystander and looker-on, or from some 
strong authority on the Americans' side. I have 
drawn it from subsequent historians of their country 
or their party, such as Dr. Gordon, Mr. Ramsay, 
and Mr. Graham e ; or from contemporary letter- 
writers, such as Washington, Franklin, and John 
Adams. I thought, as an Englishman in birth and 
in feeling, that the facts, if I concurred in them, 
which I gathered in the foreign camp, would be 
far more satisfactory and convincing to my readers 
than any I could gather in my own. On this 
ground, in my accounts of the disturbances and 
Revolutionary War, I have thought it best to 
make but very sparing use of the writers upon the 
loyal side. Hutchinson's History has not been 
quoted by me on a single occasion, — a fact which 
I observe has afforded to a recent critic in your 
country a proof (sufficient at least for his own 



I 



31 

conviction) that I had never seen, or never heard 
of, that work ! But if you, Sir, after writing an 
answer to the small portion of my History, which 
you saw extracted, have since done me the further 
honour to read the rest, you will have found that 
my passing over any citation from Hutchinson was 
rather part of a rule or system. In like manner I 
have but twice, I think, quoted from Stedman's 
History, the first time (Vol. V. p. 481.) only to 
correct an error he commits, relating to an English 
Act of Parliament 5 and the second time (Vol. VI. 
p. 55.) only to illustrate what is not controverted 
on the other side — the utterly exhausted state of 
the English soldiers, from their protracted march 
on the day of Lexington — " their tongues," says 
the Commissary, " hanging out of their mouths 
" like those of dogs after a chase!" 

If, therefore, in speaking of the years 1775 and 
1776) I have put forward any statements unfavour- 
able to any person or persons in New England, I 
can only say that I have done so for the most part 
on the authority of the Commander in Chief of 
the New England troops. No doubt it may be 
possible, with a little ingenuity, to take exception, 
on your side of the Atlantic, to the words even of 
so accurate and so truthful a man as Washington. 
It may be possible, if he wrote immediately after 
the events, to say that his mind was biassed in 
some degree by temporary spleen and irritation. 
It may be possible, if he wrote at a later period, 
to say that his memory had failed him as to the 



, 32 

minute details of bygone days. But still I am not 
convinced that the testimonies I alleged have been 
otherwise than most fairly chosen. 

But let me now conclude. Though we are not 
acquainted, I am unwilling to part from you or 
from any other gentleman with whom I may be 
engaged in controversy, with any unkindly feeling 
or discourteous expression on my part. Allow 
me, therefore, in conclusion, to assure you, as 
I can with perfect truth, that widely as we dif- 
fer on the privileges and the duties appertaining 
to an Editor, that difference does not prevent me 
from recognising and respecting your high attain- 
ments, your unwearied industry, and the valuable 
service which, in many of your notes and illustra- 
tions, you have rendered to the cause of historic 
truth. 

I have the honour to be, 
Sir, 
Your very obedient Servant, 

MAHON. 

Chevening, Kent, 
August, 1852. 



THE END. 



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